Vintage (5 page)

Claire disappeared into the kitchen and returned, straining under the weight of a platter of huge porterhouse cuts. “
La bistecca!
” she declared. Everyone watched her set it down. Clear juice welled under the steaks, the seared surface adorned with cracked pepper and rosemary sprigs, the traces of fat clinging to the side translucent gold and buttery. Bruno closed his eyes and inhaled the raw mineral bite of the cardoons intertwining with the rich animal texture of the steaks. He knew he'd be able to cut the Chianina with the edge of his fork.

Anna offered a genuine smile as they all sat. Food, after all, was a way into her heart as well. Bruno uncorked the second bottle of Barolo and poured himself a healthy splash. He reached over to pour for Anna, but she stopped him after a couple ounces, which didn't bode well. Claire proffered a wineglass half filled with mineral water, and he gave her a splash as well, a ritual they'd started when she was thirteen in hopes that a little exposure would keep alcohol from being some mysterious novelty as she grew older.

Carmen held up her own glass of sparkling water. “Can I try some, Daddy?” Bruno poured a dram into her glass before Anna could stop him, just enough to turn her seltzer pink. Carmen giggled.

Then there was an awkward pause as they all eyed the food and hesitated. It was as if they realized at that moment the reality of the situation. They weren't a nuclear family. This was a sham, an exception to their daily routine, evidenced by the fact that they'd taken out the good china.

But then someone's stomach grumbled and Carmen hefted a huge spoonful of risotto onto her plate. The dining commenced, and Bruno noted that Anna helped herself to one of the larger cuts of steak. A healthy appetite was a sign of happiness. Somewhere beneath her tough shell she was smiling.

The meal was by all accounts a success, and after they had finished clearing the table, Bruno met Anna in the kitchen doorway. She carried a stack of plates and he was swirling the last of the wine in his glass, rocking slowly on his feet. Her face was flushed, her cheeks rosy and youthful, a strand of hair slipping across her forehead. She smiled.

“That was amazing. As usual. Thank you, Bruno.”

He figured that now was as good a time as any for his confession. He followed her to the kitchen, where she set the plates down next to the sink. She spun, surprised to find him close behind her. It was all he could do to refrain from leaning in to kiss her on the lips.

She looped her arms around his neck and pulled him down. She kissed him on the forehead, and then they pressed their brows together.

“Thank you,” she said. “That must have cost a fortune.”

“Life is short—”

“So eat like it means something,” she said, finishing the phrase he had used to sign off from his television news segment. She rested her chin on his shoulder and pulled him closer. His heart beat so hard that he could feel it reverberate against her body. “It means so much to the girls to have you here.”

“It means a lot to me, too.”

“And I have to admit it gets lonely.”

Bruno slipped one hand to the small of Anna's back, a familiar indentation, molded to fit perfectly. He squeezed her tighter. He felt a small opening here that he hadn't sensed in years. He began to second-guess his planned confession. Seducing his estranged wife would be so much more fun.

“So what did you think of the
bistecca
?”

“And cardoons? Chapter nineteen, right?”

He was surprised that she knew the book so well . . . better than even he did. But then, she'd been his first editor on every draft.

“So, did it work?”

“Hard to say.”

“I think maybe we should test it out.” He pulled away and pirouetted her, ending in a dip and a kiss. “What do you say?”

“It's a weeknight. I've got work to do.”

“So true.” Bruno sighed. “And Ma's got the couch all made up. You know how disappointed she'd be if I didn't show.”

Anna laughed. Ella Fitzgerald was crooning silky strands on the kitchen radio, and they slow-danced, his bristly cheek pressed to her temple.

“You know,” he said, “you're still the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Even after everything?”

“Even after everything. I'd do it all again,” he said, pulling her closer.

“Bruno . . .” Anna offered halfheartedly.

“No strings attached,” he said, pulling her closer. “You could kick me out in the morning.”

“Why?”

“Because we're technically still married. And I'm charming as hell. And there's a half bottle of very good wine remaining. And I've been largely good . . .”

Anna stopped short and pulled away. “What do you mean, ‘largely' good?” She was half teasing, but something must have crossed Bruno's face. She could always read him like a clean draft. “Bruno?”

It was certainly an opportune moment to confess. Bruno thought about it, and it was clear that Anna could see the wheels turning. The bad news could wait. It had been a long time since
they hadn't ended an evening with an argument or strained diffidence, and he didn't want to spoil the moment.

“Oh, you know,” Bruno said, pulling her close again. “I've practically been a saint . . . aside from the occasional splurge.”

“Like tonight's wine?”

“Precisely.”

“It was very good.”

“Perhaps you'd like to have some more.”

“I've got work to do.”

“Yeah. So do I.”

“You do?”

“The book.”

“Oh, of course.”

They danced awhile longer, but the opportunity was gone.

The song ended and Anna switched back to the pop station, which drew Carmen to the kitchen to help clean. Anna reminded Bruno of an upcoming parent-teacher conference at Carmen's school as she brushed off her apron. Carmen took a place at her side and began to scrub a crusted baking dish while Anna smiled, patting her daughter on her shoulder as Bruno stood there suddenly feeling purposeless.

*      *      *

Later, Bruno lay on the roof of the house next to Claire, the clink and tinkle of Anna and Carmen cleaning dishes coming through the window of the floor below a soothing, merry sound. They watched a satellite trace across the sky, fighting through the pink haze of Chicago's ambient light.

Lying with their backs on the black tar shingles that were still oozing the day's warmth had become something of a ritual for Claire and Bruno. It was their refuge from a troubled household
when the marriage was going to hell. It also provided Claire respite from an overly energetic younger sister.

Bruno balanced his glass on his belly and swirled the last drop of his wine. He felt his daughter's presence next to him, radiating like the roof tiles, but this sensation was a blend of teenage immortality and worry.

“There's another one,” Claire said, pointing out a second satellite. Bruno squinted through his wine buzz.

“I see two of them.”

“I think you're tipsy.”

“Probably.” He smiled sadly and attempted to change the subject. “You should see the stars in Chianti. They're like nowhere else. The dark hillsides are dotted with lights so that it's hard to tell where the world stops and the heavens begin.”

“I wish I could come with you sometime. On one of your assignments.”

“Of course. Next time, let's do it.”

“Really?”

He turned his head and looked at her, nodding and smiling. She was a little girl again. “Absolutely. As long as it doesn't interfere with school.”

“I'm dying to go to Europe.”

He didn't have the heart to admit that the prospects of some magazine expensing a trip to Italy were as remote as the satellites circling overhead.

They lay in silence.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked. Why were women always asking him this question? It's not something you can answer honestly. Could he tell her that he'd just lost his job? That he was no longer writing? That he was struggling to imagine a useful purpose for his life? That, despite lying here, belly
full of a good meal and a favorite wine, next to one of his top three most favorite people in the world, on a warm spring night under the stars, he wasn't happy?

“How's school?” he asked, changing the subject.

“It's fine.”

“Grades good?”

“Second in my class.”

“Not bad.”

“I don't want to be valedictorian. I don't want to be the kid who knows it all. Some kind of sideshow attraction. Salutatorian is a much better option for me.”

“I suppose that's reasonable.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“Mom says I shouldn't sell myself short. She also doesn't want me to go to culinary school. She says it would be a waste. Especially if I could get a scholarship to a university.”

“Ah, I see. If you were valedictorian and had a free ride to a top school, it would make it difficult to justify the expense of cooking school to your mother.”

“Yeah, right. What do you think?”

“Cooking at that level is tough. The hours are terrible. It's stressful. It's hard to maintain a family. And culinary school is expensive, and when you get out you're not guaranteed to make much money. Your mother is a pragmatic person. She wants what's best for you.”

“But I've been saving. I added another two grand to my college fund since last year just from babysitting.”

“I think you should listen to your mother,” Bruno said, and he thumped his chest with his thumb, “but also listen to what's in here. Sometimes we are our own best advisors.”

“I thought you'd want me to cook.”

“I want you to be happy. So does your mom.”

“Then why doesn't she let you come back home and stay with us?”

“That's complicated, honey.” They lay there for a long time, watching the stars twinkling through the veil of city light.

For generations industrious Russians have been fending off their brutal winters and obscene number of Orthodox fasting days with the help of the noble salmon. Kulebyaka, or Russian fish pie, is the ultimate meal for spiritual rebirth. Stuffed with leeks, rice and wild mushrooms, and wrapped in a flaking pastry, this hearty peasant dish will allow you a glimpse of spring from within a February blizzard. When prepared with earnest contrition, it promises a ray of hope in even the most hopeless of situations, mending marital spats or bringing estranged siblings together to break bread and begin at last the overdue thaw of hard and frozen hearts.

—
B
RUNO
T
ANNENBAUM,
T
WENTY
R
ECIPES FOR
L
OVE

B
runo awoke profoundly disappointed that he wasn't lying next to Anna. The evening before had been lovely, and he'd felt closer to her than in any time since she'd given him the boot. There was also the burden of the looming confession about losing his
job. Anna was an accountant. There was no skirting the issue of his evaporating financial support. His head thrummed from the wine and his guilty conscience. The lace doilies and porcelain doodads of his mother's living room were an affront to his senses. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to recapture sleep, but he felt his mother hovering over him.

“Bruno, are you sick?”

“No, Ma. What time is it?”

“Time for me to open the store. And you should be at work, too, no? You need a good meal. I fixed you a little something.” She headed into the kitchen, a round, compact woman bundled into her powder-blue deli uniform, leaving a vapor trail of moderately priced, if old-fashioned, perfume.

What awaited Bruno in the kitchen was the full exhibition of a German breakfast, with a dash of Yiddish, the latter the influence of his father's side of the family. The small round table was laden with the fresh
brötchen
that his mother had always been able to produce as if by magic, and then the poppy-seeded
mohnberches
, her mother-in-law's recipe.

Aside from the breads there was a spread of quality preserves from the shelves of Ma's eponymous deli, Greta's European Imports, where Bruno had learned appreciation for imported fineries as a child. After her husband's death, Greta had employed his life insurance in a series of shrewd decisions, purchasing the kosher butcher shop where he used to work and transforming it into a high-end deli aimed at the neighborhood's changing demographics. She'd grown up in a German-speaking corner of France, half Catholic and half Jewish, which she felt gave her an ethnic flexibility, allowing her to pick and choose as the neighborhood Jews moved north, the Germans disappeared, the Poles encircled and the young urbanites and then hipsters
encroached. It wasn't a smashing success, but it was a steady living. As a boy Bruno used to sit on a stool behind the counter after school, with a spiral notebook and a rubber-banded bundle of Black Warrior pencil stubs left over from Greta's bookkeeping duties. He would engross himself with sketches and scribbling for a large part of the afternoon until restlessness drove him into the aisles, where he'd begin to study the colored jars and tubes of mustards, jams and jellies, until he knew their names by heart.

Three wax paper squares before him on the kitchen table held scoops of
leberwurst
, thin-sliced lox and schmaltz, the latter being a clear, white, gloriously gelatinous globe of rendered goose fat that immediately set Bruno's mouth to watering.

He sat down to a small pitcher of coffee, his mother sitting across the table, her hands patiently folded, her lips pursed. He chose a roll and carefully ripped it apart, laying the open faces across the top of the toaster and depressing the plunger.

Greta pushed a pile of mail before him while he inhaled the buttery tendrils of the warming bread. He thumbed through the usual list of bills, chuckling over a new payment booklet for a car that had long since been repossessed. This reminded him of the mail that Iris had given him when he left the office, and he fetched the envelope from
Gourmet
. It was a check for an article he'd sent months earlier, a story on summer picnic fare that contained the (secret) recipe for his mother's favorite kosher potato salad, including exact measurements for the juiced dill, grated lemon peel and precision-cracked celery seeds, all ingredients whose inclusion Greta guarded jealously. Had she known of the betrayal, she would have turned on Bruno with a wooden spoon.